On how much he anticipates changes from the previous iterations of the scheme
I think the great thing is that we were all together, Mike, Jesse and I and, obviously, others you've seen throughout the NFL. I think there's like six teams that are running this system now. Same thing college-wise, D'Anton Lynn at USC. It's been a lot of fun and I think we all have our own personalities but I think we all call games differently than each other. Some are more aggressive, some are less aggressive. The thing that I love about it is the system works. It's proven that it works. I think both Mike and Jesse did a tremendous job here at Michigan and it's fun for me to watch the tape because you do become the proud parent if you will of seeing other guy's success and everything else. I think as the defensive coordinator, I think it's my job to not only develop players but to develop coaches. You're seeing a lot of success with those guys.
On the talent returning to the defense
I think it would be a better question to ask when we get done with spring. I'd be able to answer you in a lot more detail. I think there's definitely some talented players here. Upfront, at all three levels. Just can't stop there. We have some people that need to step up to get more playing time and you can put in that same mix. Did some walkthrough yesterday and you could see there's a lot of talent walking around here on campus. I'm not worried about our talent level. You can always get more, I know that. Everything is so relative between pro, college and high school. It's all relative. The thing I always tell the players, wherever I've been, as soon as you get here, they're looking to replace you. Coaches and players. That's just the way this great game works. It's competition and people competing. That's what I'm really looking forward to in spring.
On what appealed to him about coming back to college
It's getting very comparable to the National Football League, it's what it's getting comparable to. I think through mutual friends Sherrone and I got in contact with each other. That part worked right away, immediately just talking with Sherrone. I heard a lot of great things about him and everything that people have told me, I've seen. It's an opportunity for myself and my wife, I want to do this. She's like, are you sure? I'm like, yeah, I want to do this. To coach at this great university and play the games that we play, this schedule is not much different from the schedules I've been playing the last 20 years, I know that. It's going to be a tough challenge for us.
On Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant
I think that, every year, no matter where you're at, you break your entire defense down and start building a foundation from the ground up again. You can't just pick up from where you were the year prior. I think with the foundation of having those two to start with, it would help any defense out at any level.
On what has jumped out to him early
I think that you could tell, especially towards the end of the year last year, everybody was on one accord. The communication was on point and you could see them actually working together and really step up and play. I saw the carryover of that yesterday with just a walkthrough, that part of it. The communication part is what stands out to me. It's really exciting and fun to watch. These kids — I say kids, they're young men. They love football and they want to learn football. They're excited about learning football. That's been really refreshing and exciting to me.
On how much he's willing to listen to the players to mold his defense
Look, everybody has a voice in this defense. Everybody is an individual stockholder if you will. I think that the day that you stop wanting to learn, whatever it is, is the day you start dying. I'm not ready to do that yet. I used with the coaches, there will be a player that you ask a question or they ask you a question because they don't understand how you presented it and they might say something that clicks in your own mind. Like, hey, that's pretty good. Let's do it that way. We have those type of players here. Rod Moore, he's the safety that, and I'm not talking about play-wise or anything else. Smart-wise, football knowledge-wise, all that. He reminds me of Eric Weddle and he was one of the smartest safeties I've ever coached. I called Weddle and told him about it. That's exciting to me because there's a lot of checks that have to made on the field and it's like, well, the head pieces, the ear pieces coming in now, which is great because that's what I'm used to. There's still signals going to be going on. Rod is like, if they go hurry up, what should we do? Call the defense. You can't be wrong. He's that smart. Now, what you gotta do is start to build more and more guys like that. I haven't had as many conversations with Makari as I have Rod but you can see with Makari's play, those two are connected. I saw it yesterday in a walkthrough. There's going to be other guys with that. Mason is one, upfront. Ernie (Hausmann) at linebacker. There's a lot of guys that know football here. That's the good thing for me, the advantage is it's the system that we've all put together. You'll see a different flux of it because there's different coaches, different assistants. We did this here. Alright, that looks pretty good, let's incorporate that. The assistants that Sherrone has hired are top-level guys. LaMar Morgan in the secondary, he was a coordinator, he's been a coordinator before so he thinks like a coordinator. BJ is the same way as the linebacker coach. My goal for them is that they become coordinators. I want everybody to think that way. They could be graduate assistant, could be analyst, it could be whoever. Rising tide raises all the ships and there's not a bad question or bad answer for anything so you learn that way. I know I took forever to answer that question.
On whether he sees himself adapting his tendencies in the college game
I think every year is different. I'm not going to tell Ryan Day or Sark what we're gonna do. I have confidence in these players that they're going to execute at a high level. I am more aggressive than Jesse — the proof is in the pudding with Jesse and Mike. If we can get to the quarterback rushing three, we'll rush three. That's the way football is, you just gotta see how it changes because people are adjusting to us, too, as well.
On how his approach changes from the pro level to the college game
I don't think it changes at all. Like I said, it's all relative. I think you change every year when you go back and look at what you've done and it all depends on the personnel you've had. In New York, for example, they talked about I blitzed so much, there's a lot of games where we had to blitz. Whatever that situation was. I think it changes every year.
On his approach to recruiting
I think that recruiting, as a coach, I think you do that every day. The players you have on the roster, now you're tied to the portal and the pros it's free agency. High school kids are transferring now and everything else. I think that part of recruiting is just coaching. As far as going out on the road, we did the same thing at the NFL level. You'll see us out here at Pro Day, all the guys that are out. You talk to as many people as you can as well as on-campus about these players. Same thing with high school, when you go to a high school, you're going to talk to more people at the high school than you are actually the kid to find out about the kid. I love the challenge of recruiting, I'm excited about recruiting. I think we have an advantage winning a national championship. I already mentioned that the coaches that were brought here, they're all excellent recruiters. Sherrone and Sean, they have a plan in recruiting and it's going to be fun to execute.
On the learning curve of the assistant coaches knowing the defense
Much rather have the players up to speed. The coaches, they got it. Most of us have been together for about, what, a month? Got hired two days ago. A month together. Don't talk to LaMar about that. We were just in there and going over tape with the walkthrough. It's a continual conversation, it's all part of coaching. This system is really so easy to learn once you understand the concepts of it. We're just at the baby steps of it right now but, like you said, the players already know the system so there's times that they'll say something. We've had defensive staff meetings up there and Kevin Wilkins who came with me from the Giants, he's having a blast. I want them to do this, I want them to feel like they can come walk into a defensive staff meeting and they'll sit and watch tape with us. Different times, different kids, they'll come in and sit down. They don't sit for the whole meeting but they'll sit in there. They'll say things like, hey, we called it this last year. Most of them I'm like, alright, let's just keep calling it that. There's going to be times where I'm like, no, I can't do that. I'm old and stuck in my ways that way. My brain doesn't work that way, I'm not as smart as you guys.
On what kind of resource has Jesse Minter been for him
He's been great. He played a big part of me getting here. Jesse, he talked to Sherrone, I know that. I talked to Jesse, right now it's a busy time for him, it's a busy time for me, too. He always picks up whenever I call. I'm there for him, too, for where he's at. It's been great that way. Jesse played a big role.
On whether it's nice to be close to the guy who had the job last
Yeah, it's nice. The trust factor. You're talking to a guy that you've been friends with, worked with and stayed in touch with. I've watched all the Michigan games when we were at Baltimore the last year and, at the Giants, I told LaMar, we watched Vanderbilt play Connecticut, that was a barnburner. It's basically family. We spend more time, as coaches, we spend more time together than you do your families, which is a sad thing to say about the profession but that's the way it is.
On how much input he had on the hiring of the position coaches
It's coaching. It really is, it's coaching. Sherrone hired the staff. We interviewed LaMar through Zoom and with previous relationships, I told him I needed Kevin Wilkins because he's my right hand, he's going to be here as an analyst. Everything else has just sort of filled out how its filled out. It's a fun process to go through, I'm glad its pretty much over and we can start doing football. It's been a lot of fun.
On the next leaders on the defense
The exciting thing is that every one of these guys leads. They're hard-working, blue-collar players that come to work every day and they lead in their own ways. Some guys that, all of us, right here, are not thinking of being a leader, will step us a leader during the spring. You can lead in a lot of different ways. You can lead with production, execution of the defense. You might be quiet, we have one linebacker that talks a lot, one linebacker that's a little bit more quiet, same thing with the safeties, but they all lead in different ways. I'm definitely not worried about leadership because you've got the two tackles, each level up the middle. It's just like baseball, you want to be strong up the middle. Those six players right there are great leaders. The other guys will find their niche. It's tough to lead when you're out on the corner but Will Johnson is a leader. He's a leader. He's a leader in the weight room. I was watching him, he had all the guys straighten up the weights when they were putting weights back. On the field, I can see it. You talk about a guy, we'll see. I think he's going to be a big-time early draft choice.
On whether he's been in the Big House
Yes, I've been in the Big House. Once in college I can't talk about because I just got hired by HireRight or whatever to check my background. Also, I took my wife for a romantic weekend for the Ohio State-Michigan game. I'm going to mess up my name, I always do, ran for like a 1,000 yards. Biakabutuka. That was when Ohio State had all these draft choices and, I can say we now, beat the brakes off of them. That was a great game to watch. She's used to it. Going on 39 years now.
On his favorite music
It's all old school, trust me. All old school.
On everything he saw on film he found unique about the defense called by Minter or Macdonald
I don't think it's — they did some really cool things. The biggest learning curve for me, as you will, is they tried to simplify, which, I said they made it harder. That's both of them. To just one-word calls because of the speed of the game and you're signaling it. Which I understand. To me, the thing that stood out was not with Mike or Jesse, it's Sherrone and Jim as far as the physicality of what this team plays with offense, defense and special teams. It's the way it's supposed to be played. That's so refreshing for me. It's how you practice, it's how you workout it's how you do your walkthroughs. It all starts as soon as you walk into this building. The other thing that stood out, it was love at first at sight when I watched the Penn State game and he ran the ball 32 times in a row. I'm like, that's my guy. It goes back to the old Buddy Ryan philosophy, if you have a blitz that's hitting, don't block it for him, keep calling it. Sherrone has the same philosophy as an offensive guy of running the football. If they can't stop it, why do anything else? Just keep feeding the rock to those guys, the running backs. It comes back to the physicality. It makes your whole team tougher. I'm really excited to be a part of that again. I was that way with Jack at Western Kentucky and places that we've had success, in Baltimore with John. Always had a physical team. That's what I'm excited about.
On coaching younger players
I have an experience of raising kids and coaching the guys that I've coached, there's kids that are 20 years old. Kayvon Thibodeaux was 20 years old when he got drafted, so it's not that much difference. I think, to me, the thing I look forward to is seeing a Cole Sullivan, where he's going to end up at the end of his career here because he's got a bright future. You just look at his build and how he moves and all that stuff, I'm saying through the weight room and all that stuff when they're doing all the testing and things like that, he's got an exciting future and it's fun to sit down and talk to him and they have no idea. They have no idea how exciting their future is. That's a good thing because you need to show them. That's the best thing I can bring is my experience from the NFL, obviously, and who I've coached. I know what it takes to get to the next level. When you start preparing them that way, they start playing that way. That's going to be to our benefit.
On the truck driving route he used to run
I know, at that time, I wanted to coach football. At that time, I wanted to be a high school teacher and coach. Doing that for five years, that's helped me to get to where I've been. I am an educator first. My high school coach, getting back to the old comment, he's still coaching. My high school coach. Coming full circle back to your Michigan question, he was a graduate of that other school, his mom is still alive so he had to tell his mom that I was the defensive coordinator at Michigan. He said, after she grabbed her chest, she said I always knew he was a bad kid. Obviously, he was a graduate from Ohio State and he took coaching classes from Woody. I've grew up all throughout the Ohio State-Michigan game. I'm looking forward to the day that we play them. It's going to be fun. You think about Michigan, you think about Notre Dame, you think about the other schools when you're coaching about how cool it would be to coach them. It's come to fruition. I'm excited about it. I really am.
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